Week 6

February 5, 2008
I LOVE MY JOB! Today was the first true day of my internship at Shangilia Mtoto Africa and I could not be happier. I thought I loved it last Thursday and I did, but today as soon as I arrived I was elated. I got there at 9:00 this morning and was given a teaching assignment right away. I have been placed in the pre-unit class, which ranges from ages 4-6. There are seven boys and girls in my class and I am in charge of basic things such as spelling, the alphabet, reading, shapes, drawing, basic mathematics, etc. This might seem as though it is a bit of an immature curriculum for kids who are 5 or 6-years-old, but for the older kids, this is the first academic atmosphere they have been exposed to. Everline is a 6-year-old girl who is still new to Shangilia. Her mother is alive, but failed to properly take care of her, which is why she is at Shangilia. A number of children have been orphaned, but most are coming from destitute home situations in which their families have been abusive or used their children as a means to get drugs. Some parents have their children beg for money on the streets, then buy glue and snort it to alleviate the feeling of hunger. From what I can tell, lot of the kids at Shangilia have been subjected to similar practices such as this. It became clear to me just how hard this hits some of the children when in a class I was observing this afternoon was studying family. One little boy just kept screaming “my father is dead!”

Overall though, the children love being at Shangilia. They get music videos every month and this month’s focus is on none other than Michael Jackson. While we were on break from class today two boys in classes 1 and 2 (about 7 and 8 years-old) very suddenly burst into a full and accurate performance of “Beat It” followed by “Thriller.” Sammy and Benjamin knew every single move and every single word to each song. I need to get it on video because I have never seen anything like it. If Michael Jackson were dead I would deem these two children as reincarnate of the man himself. The only issue with the children’s enthusiasm is that it leaves a lot of the younger kids hurt. Grace, a 4-year-old in my class came running up to me sobbing uncontrollably because someone had done a flip and landed on her head. That’s the only issue with teaching kids acrobats…someone is going to get hurt.

We have to be home by 3:00 when we intern because Kangemi is still calming down after all of the election chaos. So Jackie (who also interns there, I believe I mentioned earlier) and I were only at Shangilia from 9:00 to 2:30. Unfortunately, at lunch I made the mistake of drinking the water they offered me, and I very stupidly assumed that it was boiled. Well by the time I got home and the two cups of Nairobi city water had filtered through me my stomach was so upset I didn’t think I was ever going to stop vomiting (gross, I know, but this is Kenya). But the way I see it is, I would rather get it all out of my system rather than get typhoid…and I’ll be bringing my own water bottle to work from now on. People typically only make that mistake once.

Apart from my body’s nasty rejection of the water it was an excellent day. However, I am going to be a very unhappy person if I can’t get online to monitor Super Tuesday. I am expecting all of you at home to keep me updated on US politics!!!!

February 7^th, 2008
I can finally eat real food again! After drinking the seemingly unfiltered water at Shangilia on Tuesday, the effects did not just last for Tuesday night…sadly I was down for the count the entire week while my body rejected everything I put into it. It was gross and for a brief hour of my life I was certain I had typhoid fever.

So it was a pretty lame week seeing as how I couldn’t leave the apartment until this afternoon. I went to Shangilia for a few hours and then we had class with KJ downtown. We started class at the US Embassy Memorial Park, which is where the US Embassy used to be located until the August 7^th bomb blast in the late 90s. There’s a museum there, and one particular girl in our group had an incredibly hard time with the experience. She grew up in Manhattan just several blocks from the Twin Towers and she lost a lot of people she knew on 9/11, so I think the visit to the park was a really unexpected reminder of that day for her.

Afterwards we went to the Kenyatta International Conference Center, which is located in downtown Nairobi. It’s a government building, where the election results in late December were announced, thus the beginning of all of this madness. The best part was that we were able to go all the way to the roof and see the entire city. The view was amazing and I really want to go at least one more time before I leave for home. We could see every part of Nairobi, from Westlands to the slums.

After the KICC I headed back to Njema Court with Diana, and we encountered one of the strangest matatu rides ever….we were legitimately off-roading for a good part of it. I’m just glad we made it home safely!

February 9, 2008
Today was yet another excellent Saturday in Nairobi. Jackie, Diana, and I went to Shangilia and we were finally allowed to take matatus…which was fine except some man cut my pocket with a razor blade in attempt to get my phone, but I caught him before he succeeded. Other than that mishap the morning went well. We walked through Kangemi, which is the slum where Shangilia is located, and of course, being the only white people in the street people kept running up to us shouting “Hello! Hello!” and little kids tugged at our pockets.

We arrived at Shangilia at 1:00 and the kids all bombarded us at the gate and continuously launched themselves into our arms. We played around for a while at the compound and I was able to take some pretty amusing videos of the kids doing their acrobats and dancing. Every Saturday all of the students and the on-duty teacher go to this field just outside of Kangemi “where the rich people live,” as explained by one of my students. So for four hours the kids get to run free in an area that isn’t made of cement and they eat coconuts off the trees while they play football or read. Jackie, Diana, and I stuck around for a few hours and then headed home back through the other end of Kangemi so that we could see more of the slum.

When we got home Carrie, Laura, Alan, Mike, Mike’s cousin, and I all went to a rugby tournament which was so much fun! I’ll be the first to admit that I know almost nothing about rugby, but it was still so easy to get into the game! We were actually there to watch two of the best teams in Kenya play each other…but KCB won the game over the Machines pretty easily. We’re going to go back next week to watch the second round of the tournament.

Right now we are in for the night, but as far as I know we are all getting ready to go out into Nairobi for a few hours to see what the world is up to.